Economic analysis of street vendors during covid-19 in Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

Street vendors tend to be among the lowest income earners in society, with many living below the poverty line. COVID-19 has the impacted in food production, distribution which impact in street vending’s to operate their business. The study aims to analyze the economic status of street vendors during COVID-19 in Kathmandu valley. The study is based on primary data and cross-sectional research design is used. The data was collected from 197 street vendors of Kathmandu valley. The data is analyze through both descriptive and inferential while software such as Microsoft Excel and STATA is used for descriptive and inferential respectively. The results of this study indicate that age, highest education of children, nature of family, family working in permanent job, working capital difference made by the company, and gender are all significant factors that affect the probability of the people engaged in street vending during COVID-19. Further, the challenges the street vendors faced such as inadequate customer, harassed by municipality, distance from residence street vendors has faced problem to operate their business. Providing license, free space for trade, fixing the rate of vegetable, providing financial assistant are some of the solutions to address the economic challenges they have faced during COVID-19.